The demand for higher communication throughput as well as lower communication terminal cost is constantly increasing. This increase goes hand in hand with a dramatic increase in the number of terminals (e.g. mobile terminals) that are connected to communication networks as well as an increase in the number of different communication channels that are available within a single terminal (for example, a typical smartphone has at least cellular+WiFi+BlueTooth capabilities). However, many of these terminals, or at least part of their communication channels, are idle for a major part of the time.
The idea of utilizing idle resources, and particularly in cellular networks, has been the subject of many solutions proposed in the art. To name but few, US 20100009695 describes a wireless communication system, where a base station lends an idle resource to another base station, for the latter to use the borrowed idle resource in order to perform data transmission.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,478,189 discloses a relay communication system in which a relay station notifies the idle resources which a transmitting terminal required and both the transmitting terminal transmits the data to the relay station on the idle recourse, and the relay station retransmits the data to the receiving terminal on the idle resources.
US20020034190A describes a method for managing communications in a cellular network and an activity server predicts a forthcoming time interval during which sufficient network resources will be available to allow a predetermined message to be sent to users of the network. When the time interval arrives, the activity server initiates the sending of the message, and the users are then able to receive the message.
Still, it would be beneficial to find a method that enables improving utilization of existing network resources, thereby enabling reduction of the CAPEX involved in adapting the communication networks to the ever-growing demands for resources.